Typically, a buyer visits one or more retail stores to shop for a product. When the buyer finds the product he or she is looking for, at a reasonable price, the buyer purchases the product from the retail store. This traditional method, however, may require that the buyer visit a number of retail stores to determine a reasonable price for the product. Moreover, a retail store must attract buyers, such as by spending money on advertising. For example, when a new retail store opens for business, many buyers will not know what types of products are sold by the retail store. In addition, the traditional method does not let a party other than the retail store, such as a product manufacturer, establish a pricing relationship directly with a buyer. For example, a manufacturer may sell a product to a retail store (perhaps through a distributor) who ultimately determines the price at which the product is sold to a buyer.
Recently, products have been sold to buyers via communication networks such as the Internet (e.g., via an online Web merchant). Internet sales have been growing steadily over the past few years, and are expected to increase, because buyers are attracted to the ease and convenience of shopping online. For example, a buyer can shop online from the comfort of home and receive information from a number of Web merchants to determine a reasonable price for a product.
The sale of products from Web merchants to buyers, however, has a number of disadvantages. For example, in a typical sale via the Internet, traditional retail stores (e.g., retail stores which are not online) are typically left completely out of the transaction. In addition to losing a potential profit from the sale of the product itself, such retail stores lose the chance to sell additional products to the buyer, such as product accessories (e.g., batteries). Moreover, retail stores cannot sell unrelated products that attract the buyer's attention while he or she is in the store. This may still be a problem even if a retail store has invested the time and money required to establish an online service. Moreover, a retail store's online service may simply shift sales that would have otherwise occurred at the actual store (as opposed to attracting new buyers).
Known methods of selling products also do not account for a buyer who may be interested in purchasing a certain type of product without being concerned about the particular product he or she receives. For example, a buyer may be interested in purchasing a color television with a 32 inch screen. The buyer, however, may not be concerned about the particular model number or brand of television he or she purchases (e.g., which manufacturer produced the television). In this case, SONY® may be willing to subsidize the buyer's purchase to encourage the buyer to receive a SONY® television. Such a subsidy may, for example, gain a new customer for a manufacturer. Note that if the buyer was only interested in purchasing a SONY® television, SONY® may not have been willing to subsidize his or her purchase (e.g., because the buyer would have still bought a SONY® television without the subsidy).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/337,906 filed Jun. 22, 1999 and entitled “Purchasing Systems and Methods Wherein a Buyer Takes Possession at a Retailer of a Product Purchased Using a Communication Network” solves many of the problems described above. In one disclosed embodiment, a purchasing system evaluates a buyer offer, including an offer price and a product category. If the buyer offer is acceptable, the purchasing system selects a particular product within the product category and arranges for a buyer to take possession of the product from a merchant. The buyer provides a payment to the purchasing system in exchange for the right to take possession of the product from the merchant. Such an embodiment may enable a buyer to receive a product more quickly as compared to having the product delivered to his or her home. According to one embodiment, a subsidy from a third party (e.g., a product manufacturer) may be applied to a buyer's purchase of the product.
In many of the methods described above, however, a buyer may not be able to take advantage of a subsidy across transactions and/or across product categories. For example, consider a subsidy that enables a buyer to purchase a first product at a reduced price. In a separate transaction, however, no subsidy is available and the buyer is not able to purchase a second product at a reduced price. That may be the case even if the amount of the subsidy was large enough to have allowed both products to be profitably sold to the buyer at reduced prices.
Another disadvantage is that it may be inconvenient for a buyer to provide information associated with a large number of products he or she wants to purchase. For example, a buyer may purchase a large number of grocery items each month, and it may be time consuming for the buyer to indicate all of these grocery items every month. This may be particularly true if, for example, the buyer supplies additional information about each grocery item. For example, it may be especially inconvenient for a buyer to indicate a grocery item category, a list of particular grocery item brands, and an offer price for each of a large number of grocery items.
A need exists, therefore, for further systems and methods that may be used when a buyer purchases products in a plurality of product categories.